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final exams

It’s finals week again in the Caribbean. You can tell because the grocery stores are out of Mountain Dew and when you walk around campus, the air is deathly silent except for the strange mutterings of students who have their hands buried in their hair and their eyes starting to bug out of their heads.

The Mister took his first final this afternoon and has his second tomorrow, so all good thoughts and prayers sent his way are appreciated. He has been studying hard for several days and I have faith that he can get the grades he needs to move on in the program. We won’t know until Friday though, and by that time we will likely be on our way back to the mainland.

One of my best friends is getting married this Saturday, so the Mister and I are making the trek back to the land of milk and honey for the two week break. We are super excited to see friends, family and a long list of restaurants. Especially the restaurants. 😉

There may not be posts for the next two Mondays since we’ll be running around trying to fit in all the family visits, scheduled appointments and other activities that need to be done before we return to the island of misfit toys. We wish we could fit in more people and places, but it’s hard to do everything in only 13 days, so if we don’t get a chance to see you this break hopefully we’ll be able to do it the next time we’re in the country.

We’re counting down the hours and crossing our fingers for good results on Friday. Love to all and, if you’re in the home area, we hope to see you soon.

Three times a year the Ross Vet School community gets to experience that most special occasion known as “finals week.” You would think this only affects the students, but it does, in fact, have a way of spilling over into the rest of the spouse and family community.

Thus, my lack of a Monday post. (Or at least I can blame it on the Mister, anyway.)

But, really, things are getting pretty hectic around here with the Mister rushing back and forth between the house, campus and various group study sessions and leaving his notes and materials strewn about the house like so many Easter eggs.

Exams start next week but this week has lab finals and all the last-minute study stress that the end of a semester always brings with it. Hopefully by the end of next week we’ll all be fourth semester students and one step closer to being halfway done with this island.

Then we’ll get a week of peaceful rest and another week of island exploration with the Mister’s parents, who are coming to visit at the end of April. We’ve got all sorts of things planned, including a sugar mill hike, a tour of Brimstone Fortress, a day trip to Nevis and possibly a deep-sea fishing expedition. Should be blog-worthy by the time we’re all done.

The crochet creations business is doing well and I’m pleased with the results I’ve been getting. Now if only I could round up those pesky monkeys in the garden and turn them into an army of crochet minions I’d be cranking orders out like a Chinese sweat shop. As it is, it’s just me, crocheting frantically in my own little Kittitian sweat shop… but at least it keeps me busy.

Now to sit on the porch, make a turtle and watch the golf carts flee to safety as the rain rolls in off the ocean. Run, little golfers, run!

So it’s Monday again. Those things seem to come around every week, don’t they? But this Monday is special. This Monday is the last Monday we will spend on this island for almost a month! Hooray!!!

However, it’s also the Monday of finals week, which sort of puts a damper on the whole thing.

But, so far the Mister has been studying hard and seems to be feeling good about most things, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it all goes. Results should come out this weekend and we’ll be able to say whether or not we’re moving on to third semester by the time our plan lands in Nashville on Saturday night.

Nashville. Country music. Winter weather. Hot chocolate. Driving on the proper side of the road. Southern hospitality. Olive Garden bread sticks…. I’m just so excited I can hardly contain myself. (Southern Florida television has been showing an awful lot of Olive Garden commercials this week, thus my craving.)

It’s so close I can almost taste it.

The Mister has three more exams to finish between now and then, though, and Friday will be a day of relaxing for him and packing for me before we head to the airport early Saturday afternoon to fight two hundred other Rossies for the seats I paid for back in April. Yes, I paid for them. Yes, I have tickets. No, we are not 100% guaranteed to get on the plane. Welcome to St. Kitts and the wonderful efficiency with which everything works here. BUT, I promise you all now, I will be on that flight. I might be in an overhead bin; I might be zipped into a suitcase in cargo, but I will. be. on. that. flight. Or there will be blood in the streets.

It’ll be 1 a.m. Basseterre time when we land on good ole Tennessee soil, and we’ll be exhausted, stiff and sore, but dog gonnit, we’ll be home.

One major benefit of being a VIP and not a student is that I don’t have to go to class, study or take exams. However, I’m attached to a student who does. So this week’s list is ten eight ways a non-student can tell that final exams are upon us here at Ross. (Assembled with help from my fellow VIPs.)

1. The students are nowhere to be found. There’s not a line to use the ATM. There are vacant tables outside the Student Union during lunch hour. The campus convenience store is empty. There simply are no students anywhere! (The Mister, however, reads this and says the students are everywhere, all the time. Change of perspective, I guess.)
2. Yet somehow, there is nowhere to park anywhere on campus. Not even on the weekends or early in the morning.
3. Every store on the island is out of Red Bull and Diet Coke.
4. You’ll find people sleeping in random places on campus, and students start scheduling power naps into their planners days in advance.
5. VIPs everywhere are scrambling to make a week’s worth of leftovers and flee the house. You see them congregating in abnormal numbers at restaurants, housing complex pools, the Marriott and beach bars for long hours in an effort to escape the strange person who sits at the kitchen table and mutters medical jargon late into the night.
6. The campus sale on Wednesday is more crowded with sellers but less crowded with buyers (the sellers being the only ones with a reason to be outside the lab). The wandering VIP now has his or her choice of whatever items may be available at rock-bottom prices from desperate seventh semesters who are eager to leave the island in two weeks with as little excess baggage as possible.
7. You can’t visit a seventh semester’s house without inevitably leaving with clothing, household goods, jars of spices, nonperishable foodstuffs, cosmetics, lawn chairs and anything else they are frantically trying to get rid of.
8. Everyone is using one of two Facebook statuses: (1) I’m going home in XX days! or (2) I’m not going home this break and I hate all of you who are.